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ADDRESS 



OF 



PRESIDENT WILSON 



TO THE 



DAUGHTERS OF THE 
AMERICAN REVOLUTION 

(CONTINENTAL HALL) 



WASHINGTON, D. C. 
OCTOBER 11, 1915 




WASHINGTON 
1915 







D. of D. 
OCT 26 1915 



ADDRESS 



MadAiM President and Ladies and Gentlemen : 

Again it is my very great privilege to welcome you to the City of 
Washington and to the hospitalities of the Capital. May I admit a 
point of ignorance? I was surprised to learn that this association 
is so young, and that an association so 3''oung should devote itself 
wholly to memory I can not believe. For to me the duties to which 
you are consecrated are more than the duties and the pride of memory. 

There is a very great thrill to be had from the memories of the 
American Revolution, but the American Revolution was a beginning, 
not a consummation, and the duty laid upon us by that beginning is 
the duty of bringing the things then begun to a noble triumph of 
completion. For it seems to me that the peculiarity of patriotism in 
America is that it is not a mere sentiment. It is an active principle 
of conduct. It is something that was born into the world, not to 
please it but to regenerate it. It is something that was born into the 
world to replace systems that had preceded it and to bring men out 
upon a new plane of privilege. The glory of the men whose mem- 
ories you honor and perpetuate is that they saw this vision, and it was 
a vision of the future. It was a vision of great days to come when a 
little handful of three million people upon the borders of a single 
sea should have become a great multitude of free men and women 
spreading across a great continent, dominating the shores of two 
oceans, and sending West as well as East the influences of individual 
freedom. These things were consciously in their minds as they 
framed the great Government which was born out of the American 
Revolution ; and every time we gather to perpetuate their memories 
it is incumbent upon us that we should be worthy of recalling them 
and that we should endeavor by every means in our power to emulate 
their example. 

The American Revolution was the birth of a nation; it was the 
creation of a great free republic based upon traditions of personal 
liberty which theretofore had been confined to a single little island, 
but which it was purposed should spread to all mankind. And the 
singular fascination of American history is that it has been a process 
of constant re-creation, of making over again in each generation the 
thing which was conceived at first. You know how peculiarly neces- 

10713 — 15 

(3) 



sary that has been in our case, because America has not grown by 
the mere multiplication of the original stock. It is easy to preserve 
tradition with continuity of blood; it is easy in a single family to 
remember the origins of the race and the purposes of its organiza- 
tion ; but it is not so easy when that race is constantly being renewed 
and augmented from other sources, from stocks that did not carry or 
originate the same principles. 

So from generation to generation strangers have had to be indoc- 
trinated with the principles of the American family, and the wonder 
and the beauty of it all has been that the infection has been so gener- 
ously easy. For the principles of liberty are united with the prin- 
cij)les of hope. Every individual, as well as ever}' Nation, wishes to 
realize the best things that is in him, the best thing that can be con- 
ceived out of the materials of w'hich his spirit is constructed. It has 
happened in a way that fascinates the imagination that we have not 
only been augmented by additions from outside, but that we have 
been greatly stimulated by those additions. Living in the easy pros- 
perity of a free people, Icnowing that the sun had always been free 
to shine upon us and prosper our undertakings, we did not realize 
how hard the task of liberty is and how rare the privilege of liberty 
is; but men were drawn out of every climate and out of every race 
because of an irresistible attraction of their spirits to the American 
ideal. They thought of America as lifting, like that great statue in 
the harbor of New York, a torch to light the patliAvay of men to the 
things that they desire, and men of all sorts and conditions struggled 
toAvard that light and came to our shores with an eager desire to 
realize it, and a hunger for it such as some of us no longer felt, for 
we Avere as if satiated and satisfied and were indulging ourselves 
after a fashion that did not belong to the ascetic devotion of the early 
devotees of those great principles. Strangers came to remind us of 
what we had promised ourselves {)nd through ourselves had promised 
mankind. All men came to us and said, " Where is the bread of life 
with which you promised to feed us, and have you partaken of it 
yourselves?" For my part, I believe that the constant renewal of 
this people out of foreign stocks has been a constant source of re- 
minder to this people of wdiat the inducement was that was offered to 
men who would come and be of our number. 

Now we have come to a time of special stress and test. There never 
was a time when we needed more clearly to conserve the principles 
of our own patriotism than this present time. The rest of the world 
from which our polities Avere drawn seems for the time in the 
crucible and no man can predict wdiat will come out of that crucil^le. 
AVe stand apart, unembroiled, conscious of our own principles, con- 
scious of what we hope and purpose, so far as our powers permit, for 
the world at large, and it is necessary that we should consolidate 



the American principle. Everj^ political action, every social action, 
should have for its object in America at this time to challenge the 
spirit of America ; to ask that every man and woman who thinks first 
of America should rally to the standards of our life. There have 
been some among us who have not thought first of America, who 
have thought to use the might of America in some matter not of 
America's origination. They have forgotten that the first duty of a 
nation is to express its own individual principles in the action of the 
family of nations and not to seek to aid and abet any rival or con- 
trary ideal. 

Neutralit}^ is a negative word. It is a word that does not express 
what America ought to feel. America has a heart and that heart 
throbs with all sorts of intense sympathies, but America has schooled 
its heart to love the things that America believes in and it ought to 
devote itself only to the things that America believes in ; and, believ- 
ing that America stands apart in its ideals, it ought not to allow 
itself to be drawn, so far as its heart is concerned, into anybodj^'s 
quarrel. Not because it does not understand the quarrel, not because 
it does not in its head assess the merits of the controversy, but 
because America has promised the world to stand apart and maintain 
certain principles of action which are grounded in law and in justice. 
We are not trying to keep out of trouble ; we are trying to preserve 
the foundations upon which peace can be rebuilt. Peace can be 
rebuilt only upon the ancient and accepted principles of international 
law, only upon those things which remind nations of their duties 
to each other, and, deeper than that, of their duties to mankind and 
to humanity. 

America has a great cause Avhich is not confined to the American 
continent. It is the cause of humanity itself. I do not mean in 
anything that I say even to imply a judgment upon any nation or 
upon any policy, for my object here this afternoon is not to sit in 
judgment upon anybody but ourselves and to challenge you to assist 
all of us who are trying to make America more than ever conscious 
of her owm principles and her own duty. I look forward to the 
necessity in every political agitation in the years which are imme- 
diately at hand of calling upon every man to declare himself, v\^here 
he stands. Is it America first or is it not ? 

We ought to be very careful about some of the impressions that 
we are forming just novv'. There is too general an impression, I fear, 
that very large numbers of our fellow-citizens born in other lands 
have not entertained with suflicient intensity and affection the Amer- 
ican ideal. But the number of such is, I am sure, not large. Those 
who w^ould seek to represent them are very vocal, but they are not 
very influential. Some of the best stuff of America has come out 
of foreign lands, and some of the best stuff in America is in the men 



■who are naturalized citizens of the United States. I ^Yould not be 
afraid upon the test of "America first" to take a census of all the 
foreign-born citizens of the United States, for I know that the vast 
majority of them came here because they believed in xVmerica; and 
their belief in America has made them better citizens than some 
people Avho were born in America. They can say that they have 
bought this privilege with a great price. They have left their homes, 
they have left their kindred, they have broken all the nearest and 
dearest ties of human life in order to come to a new land, take a new 
rootage, begin a new life, and so by self-sacrifice express their confi- 
dence in a new principle ; whereas, it cost us none of these things. 
We were born into this privilege; we were rocked and cradled in 
it; we did nothing to create it; and it is, therefore, the greater duty 
on our part to do a great deal to enhance it and preserve it. I am not 
deceived as to the balance of opinion among the foreign-born citizens 
of the United States, but I am in a hurry for an opportunity to have 
a line-up and let the men who are thinking first of other countries 
stand on one side and all those that are for America first, last, and all 
the time on the other side. 

Now, you can do a great deal in this direction. When I was a 
college officer I used to be very much opposed to hazing; not because 
hazing is not wholesome, but because sophomores are poor judges. 
I remember a very dear friend of mine, a professor of ethics on the 
other side of the water, was asked if he thought it was ever justifiable 
to tell a lie. He said Yes, he thought it was sometimes justifiable to 
lie; " but," he said, " it is so difficult to judge of the justification that 
I usually tell the truth." I think that ought to be the motto of the 
sophomore. There are freshmen who need to be hazed, but the need 
is to be judged by such nice tests that a sophomore is hardly old 
enough to determine them. But the world can determine them. We 
are not freshmen at college, but we are constantly hazed. I would 
a great deal rather be obliged to draw pepper up my nose than to 
observe the hostile glances of my neighbors. I would a great deal 
rather be beaten than ostracized. I would a great deal rather endure 
any sort of physical hardship if I might have the affection of my 
fellow-men. We constantly discipline our fellow-citizens by having 
an opinion about them. That is the sort of discipline we ought now 
to administer to everybody who is not to the very core of his heart 
an American. Just have an opinion about him and let him ex- 
perience the atmospheric effects of that opinion ! And I know of no 
body of persons comparable to a bddy of ladies for creating an 
atmosphere of opinion! I have myself in part yielded to the in- 
fluences of that atmosphere, though it took me a long time to deter- 
mine how I was going to vote in New Jersey. 



So it has seemed to me that my privilege this afternoon was not 
merely a privilege of courtesy, but the real privilege of reminding 
you — for I am sure I am doing nothing more — of the great principles 
which we stand associated to promote. I for my part rejoice that we j 
belong to a country in v^diich the whole business of government is so 
difficult. We do not take orders from anybody; it is a universal 
communication of conviction, the most subtle, delicate, and difficult 
of processes. There is not a single individual's opinion that is not 
of some consequence in making up the grand total, and to be in this 
great cooperative effort is the most stimulating thing in the world. 
A man standing alone may well misdoubt his own judgment. He 
may mistrust his own intellectual processes; he may even wonder if 
his own heart leads him right in matters of public conduct; but if 
he finds his heart part of the great throb of a national life, there 
can be no doubt about it. If that is his happy circumstance, then he 
may know that he is part of one of the great forces of the world. 

I would not feel any exhilaration in belonging to America if I did 
not feel that she was something more than a rich and powerful na- 
tion. I should not feel proud to be in some respects and for a little 
while her spokesman if I did not believe that there was something 
else than physical force behind her. I believe that the glory of^^- 
America is that she is a great spiritual conception and that in the 
spirit of her institutions dwells not only her distinction but her 
power. The one thing that the world can not permanently resist is 
the moral force of great and triumphant convictions. 



G 



Gaylord Bros, 

Makers 

Syracuse, N. Y, 

PAT. JAN. 21, 1908 



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